What on earth had just happened? I didn’t know where to start.

After a while, the weirdness became too much for me. I turned and looked at his face, lit by the whitish glow from the dashboard, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

‘Look, Patrick,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing in coming over …’ I left the sentence open, ready for his assurance that I hadn’t at all behaved out of turn, and that some extenuating circumstance I couldn’t quite imagine was the real reason for all this oddness. But all he did was say, ‘Don’t worry about it, son,’ and resume his silent driving again. These five words managed to make me feel very much worse.

But things at the party haven’t gone the way she hoped. First, her best friend Yasemin’s mum rang to say she couldn’t come because her granny had died.

‘Why?’ she asked her mother. ‘Why does that mean Yasemin can’t still come?’ Mum had explained that Yasemin probably felt too sad for music and games and laughing. She had mused on that for a while before replying that Yasemin was being ‘self-centred’, an expression she had heard the grown-ups use before.

Then she decided that she didn’t like THE dress chosen for the party, even though she had loved it in John Lewis the week before. It just looked ‘wrong’ now the day had finally arrived when she would wear it.

When the party had hardly been going for any time, Adela from her class accidentally pulled down the grass skirt from the side of the table so it looked just like a regular old table.

Now Lottie keeps showing off about winning a special medal for her karate, which she is always boasting about.

Her brother, whose name is Dylan, sits in a corner and eats crisps, even though all the food is safe for him. She heard some of the mums saying that his mum shouldn’t just leave other people to be in charge of him all the time, because it wasn’t just ‘the nut thing’ but that something was ‘a bit wrong there’.

Lottie is getting louder and louder but for some reason no one else seems to mind. Then she notices that her dad is laughing and pretending to do karate chops that Lottie is warding off with high kicks that show her knickers under her dress. Mum comes into the room and laughs too. Like Lottie is special.

No one says anything when she goes off to be alone for a while.

IRENE

‘Oh love, love, are you alright?’

‘Should we call for an ambulance?’

‘I think she just needs a minute, give her some space.’

Irene was aware of voices snapping and popping around her head like bubbles. Everything felt far away, and she could hear her own heavy breathing thundering in her ears.